Quality teaching in higher education, an OECD approach
Fabrice Hénard, December 2010
Overview of quality teaching initiatives
• Institutional and Quality Assurance Policy– Institution-wide policy (strategy)– Dedicated body, Quality Assurance Systems
• Programme Level Policy– Programme design– Programme evaluation
• Teaching and Learning-focused activities– Support to pedagogy– Support to teaching and learning environment– Continuing education for teachers– Student support– Support to student learning
External incentives to quality teaching– A favourable climate for change
• Direct State incentives or regulations• International influence
– Competition amongst institutions• The need for institutions to be recognized as a regular
higher education provider• Quality teaching “because Teaching is our mission so we
must demonstrate we are performing in that field” • Rebalancing Teaching-Research nexus
– QT, a future element of choice for students?
Does Quality assurance enhance quality teaching?
Yes• QA stimulates the
awareness on quality teaching
• Ever higher level of standards to improve quality teaching
• QA Agencies advise more than control
No• QA hardly embraces
the complexity of teaching
• How to measure QT?• How to grasp the
entire learning process?
• Irrelevant criteria in some cases?
Global aims of the HEIs engaged in Quality Teaching
– To upgrade teachers’ knowledge of pedagogical skills
– The need to have an institution-wide overview
– QT: a distinctive feature for (some) institutions
The implementation ofquality teaching initiatives
& their related actors
CBS
3 main approaches to operate in quality teaching
Operational / technical
To help teachers operate
Conceptual / Strategic
What the action of teaching means for the academic community
and what added-value is gained by students?
A learning-focused model
The function of teaching in the learning process
From scattered initiatives to a QT Policy
QualityA ssurance
Teaching
Are the teachers aware of the outcomes of their teaching?
What pedagogy would be appropriate to the expected learning?
How can the institution support
teachers to achieve their mission?
How thecurricula should be refinedto match with the expected
learning outcomes?
Do we have the skilled teachers?Are students ready to gain
such teaching?
Making teaching explicit
Who are the players?
• McGill University
Mission
Implicit role
Composition
Good practice
Quality office
-To help on practicalities
-To collect / process data
-To provides training-Practical-Theoretical
-From 1 to 30
-To preach!
-A bridge between Top & Down
-Staffing
-To combine research with in-service training
-QA staff
-Political support
-Project manager-Faculty of Education
Organisational structure
Quality Office Rector Support services (HR
, finance…)
Head Head Head
Teachers
Students
Teachers
Students
Teachers
Students
Faculty of science Faculty of law Faculty of linguistics
New functions
New Roles
Evaluation and impacts
Free University Berlin
The evaluation of quality teaching: accepted in principle, challenged in reality
• A clear awareness of the need for evaluation in teaching
• The institutions appraise the progress of quality teaching support, but not so much the quality of teaching as such.
Intermediateoutcomes
Outputs Immediateoutcomes
Inputs Ultimateoutcomes
Hours of training
Inclusion in current practice
Knowledge gain
Teaching improvement
Learning improvement
Outputs, outcomes and impacts
Why are Learning Outcomes weakly measured?
• The logical route from teaching input to learning outcome is unknown or only experimentally scrutinized
• The teaching-learning interconnection is overlooked by the traditional evaluation and accreditation systems.
• Unlike primary /secondary education, the higher learning results from a wider array of factors external to the education provided by the institution
Options to make up for the lack of reliable evaluation instruments
• More qualitative measurement tools• Opinion surveys• Descriptors
• Triangulation of information sources• Clarifying the aims of quality teaching initiatives• A dedicated evaluation on the overall impact of quality
teaching• Interpreting the subjective results of the evaluation• Defining quality and teaching
• before or along with any quality teaching initiatives
Likely impacts due to institution-wide synergy
Quality Teaching
IT
Human Resources
Facilities
Learning support
The impacts of quality teaching(1)
• Awareness of the teachers' role beyond their discipline
• Discernible impact on pedagogy
• Curriculum development (aims / contents of programmes
• Work environment
The impacts of quality teaching (2)
• Research feeds the theoretical background of quality teaching
• Research, a promising development for QT
The impacts of quality teaching (3)
• When QT boosts quality culture
• When QT promotes the institution’s identity
• QT is a promotional tool to attract and retain teachers
Main conclusions (1)
Definitions and conceptions of QT that are highly varied and in constant flux
QT initiatives are empirical and address the institutions’ particular needs The university’s local environment shapes the extent of its commitment
to QT
QT must be thought of dynamically
An effective institutional policy for the QT involves harnessing synergy between external and internal institutional factors
Main conclusions (2)
Long-term, non-linear effort subject to multiple constraints
Commitment on the part of all university stakeholders
Balance between technical aspects of quality support and the fundamental issues raised
Innovative evaluative approaches are needed to better understand the correlation QT support/Learning outcomes
Report
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